A Chiswick Christmas Carol 3/8
He managed to catch her as he’d said, but then overbalanced and fell backwards, causing the two of them to land in a heap on the floor.
“Oi! Hands off!” Donna demanded, scrambling off of him and to her feet. She nearly fell back out the open doors, but he had managed to stand up by then, and was able to pull her back inside.
Once she was safe, he walked around her and closed the doors behind them before bounding to the console.
Just as he feared, the console was in a fairly bad shape. She was still sparking, and smoke was leaking from several places. Rose was just barely holding onto the controls, but she released them as soon as he came over and began rapidly flapping her hands in the air.
Instead of going to the controls, the Doctor rushed over to Rose, her weird flapping having caught his eye. “Rose? What’s wrong?” He asked worriedly, gently taking her hands in his and turning them over so they were palm-up.
Rose winced at his touch, but then sighed and relaxed slightly.
But before she could tell him, as soon as he saw her palms, he knew. “Oh, Rose,” he whispered softly, lightly running his fingers over the small round burnt area on each of her hands.
“It’s okay,” Rose whispered softly, but she was wincing as his cool fingers brushed against her skin.
He pulled his hands back so he could look at her fingers, and sighed when he saw that several of them had painful looking blisters on them. “I’m sorry, Rose. You were hurt because of something I asked you to do.”
Rose shook her head, pulling her hands away from him. “I’m fine, Doctor. It wasn’t your fault. I’ll just go find something in the med bay, yeah?” She asked, attempting a smile before beginning to walk away.
“Rose, wait!” He quickly called after her, digging rapidly in his pockets. As Rose turned back to give him a questioning look, the Doctor pulled out first a roll of gauze, and then a small tube of some kind.
At the random appearance of gauze and cream from his pockets of all places, although, knowing the Doctor he would randomly keep such things in his pockets, Rose blinked and asked incredulously, “What, you’ve just been carrying that around in your pockets all the time? What else do you keep in there I don’t know about?”
When he just looked at her defensively, Rose walked back to him and reached for the gauze and cream. But before he handed it over, he said, “This cream will help heal those hands up nice and quick. Put the cream on first, and then the wrap the gauze over it, all right? I want to see those hands all pink and gorgeous again soon.”
Rose nodded. “I do know how to take care of myself, Doctor.” She said, taking the cream and gauze from him. Rose cautiously unscrewed the top of the cream, and squeezed a little out onto her palm.
“Rose,” The Doctor began to protest, but when she just grinned at him he couldn’t help but smile back at her. He gently took one of her hands and raised it up to his lips to kiss it lightly before grinning and moving to the console.
Once he was at the console, he began setting the controls for them to dematerialize. He only hoped that the TARDIS had enough left in her to make this trip. “Just one more time, old girl,” he reassured her softly as he worked, “please.”
Donna, who had come over to them, apparently heard him, because she turned to Rose and asked, “Does he usually talk to this ship?”
Rose looked up from where she had just finished wrapping one of her hands and was moving onto the other, and said to Donna, “Sometimes yeah,” She admitted. “But most of the time you can just ignore him when he does. Just make sure not to insult the ship, that’ll get him upset in no time.”
Donna looked confused, but just nodded as she said, “Right.”
By that time the time rotor was moving above them, but the console was still dangerously smoking and emitting sparks.
“She won’t last long,” The Doctor told them worriedly, “Probably only has enough for one trip.”
Rose frowned, “What’re we going to do then?”
“We’ll have to land her somewhere; she won’t be able to go too far.” He told them, “I set the coordinates for a nearby roof.”
“What do you mean? What’s happening?” Donna demanded, crossing her arms.
The time rotor stopped moving, and the Doctor set a last few controls. “Just give us a second, Donna. She’s a little ill right now, so we need to land her somewhere.”
“Ill? Your ship is ill?” Donna asked confused.
He shook his head, holding onto the console as the TARDIS landed roughly on the roof.
“She’s been through a lot lately,” Rose told Donna gently, tucking the mostly used gauze and cream into her pocket, “I think she just needs to rest.”
Donna still looked confused, but was stopped from asking anything else when the console suddenly emitted a loud bang and began smoking heavily.
Coughing, Rose grabbed Donna’s hand and led her to the doors which she threw open and rushed out of, pulling Donna along.
They sat down on the rough surface of the roof, Donna not minding what damage it would do to her dress. She looked at her watch then, and sighed as she saw the time displayed there.
“Half past three,” Donna whispered with a sigh, relaxing slightly.
Rose smiled sympathetically at her, “sorry.”
Donna shook her head.
Before either of them could make another attempt at conversation, the Doctor joined them. He was coughing and spluttering slightly as he aimed a fire extinguisher he’d found somewhere at the smoke billowing out of the TARDIS.
“The funny thing is,” He began, sitting down next to them. “For a spaceship, she doesn't really do that much flying.” The Doctor admitted with a smile. “We'd better give her a couple of hours.” After a slight pause, he finally asked, glancing over at Donna, “You all right?”
Donna shrugged, hanging her head, “doesn’t matter.”
“Yeah, it does Donna, it really does,” Rose gently corrected her. “And don’t listen to Mr. I’m Always All Right over there.”
“Rose!” The Doctor protested, but neither of the women were listening to him.
Rose moved over until she was sitting right next to Donna.
“So we missed it then,” She said softly.
Donna nodded, “Yeah.”
Deaf as usual to these types of things, the Doctor suggested lightly, “Well, you can book another date…”
Rose rolled her eyes. “Doctor, it doesn’t work like that. The date’s special, you always remember it.”
Donna shook her head, “Its fine really, we could find another date.” She sighed, “Just won’t be the same, not really…”
“Still got the honeymoon,” The Doctor added, as if he were off the hook now. He really didn’t understand why getting married was such a big deal.
“It’s just a holiday now,” Donna replied, leaning forward to wrap her arms around her legs.
Rose glanced over at the Doctor in time to see him wince at that. Ah ha.
“Yeah…. Yeah….” He replied, looking apologetic, “sorry.”
Donna, who had apparently changed her mind from earlier when she was accusing the Doctor of kidnapping her, said, “It’s not your fault.”
The Doctor’s face screwed up in a comedic way then, and Rose snickered quietly. “Oh, that’s a change!” He commented looking at Donna, “Thought you were going to have my head before.”
Donna smiled at that, but the three of them fell into silence when they found they didn’t really have anything to do say.
She was the one to break the silence a little later when she said reflectively, “Wish we had a time machine. Then we could go back and get it right.”
The Doctor and Rose looked over her head at each other as she said that, making pained faces at each other. Rose tried to indicate to him that she thought that they should tell her, but he just kept vigorously shaking his head at her in denial.
Finally, Rose gave up and leaned forward to rest her head on her bent knees.
She heard the Doctor reply “Yeah, yeah.” Then he paused before continuing, “But… even if I did, I couldn’t go back on someone’s personal timeline.”
Rose raised her head to say that that kind of gave it away anyways, but before she could, he added, with a sort of sniff, “apparently.”
So he was trying to pretend like he’d just read it in a book somewhere? Rose seriously doubted that Donna would believe that, and she was proved when Donna looked at him suspiciously before she stood up and walked towards the edge of the roof.
“Apparently?” Rose hissed at the Doctor, leaning over towards him. “Cause everyone knows you can’t do that.”
“I had to say something, Rose!” He whispered loudly back, also leaning in towards her. “If she knows we could go back, then she’ll want us to and you know we can’t do that.”
Rose sighed, “I know we can’t Doctor, but what does it matter if she does? You won’t let her anyways.”
“That’s different Rose,” The Doctor protested.
She scoffed lightly, “Course it is.” Rose turned her head to look over where Donna had gone. The other woman was sitting on the edge of the roof, her arms wrapped around herself looking like she was freezing.
Rose gently prodded him in the side then. When he looked over at her curiously, she nodded her head in Donna’s direction. Looking confused, the Doctor turned towards the other woman, and then looked enlightened when he noticed Donna.
He slowly stood up, adjusting his coat. “Will you be all right?” The Doctor asked her quietly, and when she nodded in the affirmative he began walking over towards Donna.
Rose stayed where she was, watching as the Doctor removed his coat and draped it around the bride’s shoulders. He could be so sweet sometimes, and usually she wasn’t even sure if he knew he was doing it. But then other times he made sure she knew what he was doing.
Rose slowly stood up, brushing the bits of the roof off her clothes before she walked over to the edge of the roof and joined Donna and the Doctor.
She sat down on the edge of the roof next to Donna just in time to see the Doctor pull something that looked like a wedding band out of his pocket and hold it up to Donna.
“Oh, do you have to rub it in?” Donna protested with a noisy sigh.
Rose blinked, staring as the Doctor slowly slid it onto one of the fingers of the hand Donna had held up. “Is that a wedding ring? Where’d you get that?”
The Doctor shrugged, “It’s a bio-damper. Should keep you hidden Donna, since those creatures can trace you.” When the ring was on Donna’s finger, he returned his hands to gripping the edge of the roof on either side of him. But he smiled at Donna and announced, popping the ‘p,’ “With this ring, I thee bio-damp.”
Rose winced a little at that. It might help Donna stay safe, but did this bio-damp really have to be in the form of a wedding ring? Like Donna didn’t have enough things to remind her she wasn’t married yet.
But Donna didn’t seem to mind, because she said lightly, almost teasing, “For better or for worse?”
The Doctor smiled at her for that, and Rose found herself laughing. It seemed like being kidnapped twice in one day, even in the space of a few hours, hadn’t managed to discourage Donna. Rose thought that she really liked the other woman.
“So, come on then,” Donna said cheerfully, “Robot Santa’s, what’re they for?”
Apparently Donna had already discovered that a good way to distract the Doctor was to ask him a question that allowed himself to display his brilliance.
“Ah, your basic robo-scavenger,” he began to explain, obviously settling into his element. “The Father Christmas stuff is just a disguise. They’re trying to blend in.” He paused for barely a second before saying, “I met them last Christmas.”
“We did,” Rose corrected him, leaning back so she could see both of them, “And what fun that was. Mr. “It is Defended” here up on top of a space ship, Christmas morning, having a swordfight with an alien in his jim-jams.”
The Doctor turned to glare unthreateningly at her as he said, “Well, if I’d had something other than jim-jams to wear, I would’ve worn that! But seeing as jim-jams were the only thing available, and that robe with a satsuma in the pocket, a Satsuma! I didn’t have a lot of choice!”
Donna frowned, looking confused, “what spaceship? Here on Earth?”
They both turned to look at her.
“Yeah,” Rose agreed finally, “the great big one, hovering over London?”
The Doctor asked skeptically, “You didn’t notice?”
Donna shrugged dismissively. “I had a bit of a hangover.”
The Doctor and Rose just stared at her. How could she have missed the Sycorax spaceship hovering right over London? All the noise, the people under blood control? It couldn’t have been that easy to miss.
Finally the Doctor turned back to survey the view of London before them, silent for once.
Rose studied him for a few seconds, but he seemed to have pulled away again. She sighed, and told Donna, pointing in the direction of the Powell Estate. “My mum and I live just over there, the Powell Estate.” Rose found her voice trailing off when she realized that that wasn’t true anymore. She’d lost her mum; her and Pete and Mickey were trapped in that other universe now. All she had now was the Doctor, and he had her. Rose sniffled. But that was enough, really, it was.
“Rose? You all right?” Donna asked worriedly.
The other woman’s voice snapped her out of her thoughts, and Rose sniffed. “Yeah, I’m fine thanks,” she didn’t see the Doctor studying her as well, but she could feel his gaze practically boring into her, “really, I am.” A few seconds later she jumped slightly when she felt a hand cover the one she was leaning back on, but when she looked up to see the Doctor flash a smile at her, she smiled back and squeezed his hand in thanks.
The Doctor was suddenly moving again, turning to study Donna as if she was a puzzle he couldn’t figure out how to solve. She kind of was, actually.
“Question is, what do camouflaged robot mercenaries want with you? And how did you get inside the TARDIS?” He asked quickly, firing off question after question while speaking at top speed like he usually did when thinking. “I don’t know…” The Doctor broke off to study her again, and then reached over to look for his sonic screwdriver in the pocket of his jacket Donna was currently wearing. He completely missed the way Donna rolled her eyes and then tensed as he dug around in the pockets, and Rose had to try very hard to bite her tongue.
Then the Doctor turned back to Donna, and asked again, “What’s your job?”
Donna sighed, and said in the grandest manner she could manage at the moment, “I’m a secretary.”
But the Doctor just frowned and continued scanning her with his sonic screwdriver, not realizing that Donna was getting angry with him again. “It’s weird, I mean- you’re not special, you’re not powerful, you’re not connected, you’re not clever, you’re not important…”
“Rude again, Doctor!” Rose told him loudly, managing to break off his tirade of insulting comments.
Donna turned to smile gratefully at her. “Thanks for that.”
“No problem, you just have to tell him he’s getting rude or ignore him when he gets like this,” Rose warned her.
Donna nodded, but then when she turned back towards the Doctor to see that he was still scanning her, she made a strangled yell and whacked the screwdriver aside. “Stop bleeping me!”
The Doctor didn’t seem put off at all by that, he just slid the sonic back into his pocket. “What kind of secretary?”
“I’m at H.C. Clements,” Donna told them, “it’s where I met Lance, I was temping. I mean, it was all a bit posh really. I’d spent the last two years at a double glazing firm. Well, I thought- I’m never gonna fit in here.”
As Donna explained, Rose couldn’t help but think that Donna could well give the Doctor a run for his money, gab wise. She seemed to love to talk just as much as he did.
“And then he made me coffee,” Donna said, a happy smile on her face. “I mean, that just doesn’t happen. Nobody gets the secretaries a coffee.”
“Right, course not,” The Doctor commented, as if he knew exactly what he was talking about. Rose looked over at him, and when he noticed her looking at him, he coughed and looked away.
“And Lance-he’s the head of HR! He doesn’t need to bother with me!” Donna told them, shaking her head. “But he was nice, he was funny,” she still had that same happy smile on her face when she talked about Lance. It was sweet really, Rose thought. “And it turns out he thought everyone else was really snotty too. So that’s how it started, me and him-one cup of coffee. That was it.”
Before she could say any more, the Doctor broke in, “when was this?”
“Six months ago,” Donna answered quickly.
He seemed surprised at that, and then said, “Bit quick, to get married…”
Donna shrugged, saying hesitantly, “Well, he insisted. And he nagged, and he nagged me… And he just wore me down, and then finally, I just gave in.”
Rose had a feeling that Donna was twisting the story somewhat, but unlike the Doctor, she was too nice to say that.
“What does HC Clements do?” The Doctor asked, apparently still trying to figure out the situation even after Donna’s long-winded explanation.
“Oh, security systems, you know…” Donna told him with a shrug. “Entry codes, ID cards-that sort of thing. If you ask me, it’s a posh name for ‘locksmiths.’”
The last bit seemed to have grabbed the Doctor’s attention, because he said musingly, “Keys…”
But Donna seemed to be done talking now. She slowly got up to her feet, and shrugged the coat off to hand it back to him. “Anyway, enough of my CV. Come on, it’s time to face the consequences.”
The Doctor followed her to his feet, and then reached down to lend Rose a hand to help her up. Rose let him pull her up (she never stopped being surprised by how strong he was), and thanked him when she was standing again.
Meanwhile, Donna had continued talking. “Oh, this is gonna be so shaming,” She turned to the Doctor, pointing a finger at him, “you can do the explaining, Martian-boy.”
The Doctor sighed, shaking his head. “Yeah, I’m not from Mars.”
Donna didn’t seem to hear him, because she was walking back towards the TARDIS again.
Rose had a feeling that Donna calling him a Martian was going to become a habit now. She felt a hand close around hers, and looked up to see the Doctor smiling at her. Rose smiled back and squeezed his hand as they began following Donna to the TARDIS.
As she walked, Donna called over her shoulder to them, “Oh, I had this great big reception all planned. Everyone’s gonna be heartbroken.”
Part Four
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